In times of war or siege, Italian families would vacate their homes and rent apartments in safer areas. In order to protect themselves they would hire soldiers to sleep on the floor in shifts.
Ordinarily we would want to verify such stories before publishing them here as part of a phrase derivation. In this case though it isn't really important. The meaning of the phrase turns on the association in Italian folk-memory of mattresses with safety in wartime. The phrase wasn't well known outside of the USA and Italy prior to the Godfather movies. It was used there, and later in The Sopranos television series, to mean 'preparing for battle'. Whether or not the stories that originated it are true doesn't alter the fact that the screenwriters of those films used them in that context.
"That Sonny's runnin' wild. He's thinkin'a going to the mattresses already."
Going to war with a rival clan or family. Used in the mafia. Its when a mafia family sends someone out to get someone apartments and some mattresses for the soldiers of the family to sleep on while they hide out in saftey, waiting for a call to do something.
⠀⠀⠀⠀To be sexually or romantically attracted to the inanimate object commonly referred to as Mattresses ("beds", "bunks", "sacks", etc.) regardless of the item's manufacturer or country of origin.
"Man I gotta hit they hay, ya'know what I mean?"
"For sure! I'm Mattressexual, so I hit it all the time!"
"My friend came out to me last weekend. I knew he was being real with me when he no longer wished to go the fuck to bed, but that he had wished to go to fuck the bed. I accept him greatly for this bravery in coming out as a Mattressexual."
Nickname given to bales of marijuana thrown overboard or out of airplanes. Origin is reportedly from members of the US Coast Guard in the area of Southern Florida.